32. Isolde
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ISOLDE
“ I solde.”
For the third time that day, Isolde lurched upright, startled out of an uneasy sleep by a sound.
It took her a moment to remember where she was—what had happened.
Her and Bastian on the floor of his room. Everett bursting in, spewing vitriol as one Wolf held Isolde and the others drug Bastian away. Bastian coming back, covered in blood, barely alive.
The way he’d thrashed against her hold as Aggie plucked the razor sharp Wolf’s claws from his back, the rawness of his screams searing into her mind.
The memory of it all, sharp and fresh in her head, made Isolde ill.
She swallowed down a wave of nausea, willed her pounding heart to calm.
That feral rage mounted inside her, too, until she felt her spine go rigid, and she needed every ounce of control she possessed not to storm out of the suite with her fangs bared and her knives drawn.
“Isolde?” Bastian’s voice was barely more than a rasp—ravaged from the screaming. “Are you alright?”
Bastian was awake. The swelling in his eye had already begun to go down, the scrape to one cheek scabbed over, though the rest of his face was a mottled mess of black and blue.
He blinked dazedly up at Isolde from his place on the table, his hand tight around hers, like he feared she might disappear if he let go.
“Am I alright?” Isolde repeated. Her own knuckles were white from the grip she had on Bastian’s hand, and she had to force herself to relax her fingers. “I’m not the one who almost died . How are you feeling?”
“They didn’t touch you, did they?” he pressed, blatantly ignoring her question. “When they came to get me?”
They had, but Bastian didn’t need to know that.
Isolde had to suppress a shudder at the way that blond Wolf had sniffed her, his eyes dark with hunger, but he hadn’t hurt her.
Evidently clemency really did mean something in Wolf territory, because she didn’t think she had even a single bruise from the way she’d been restrained while they drug Bastian away.
Family, on the other hand… apparently that was worth nothing here.
“No,” she told him. “They didn’t touch me.”
The sigh that slipped out of him was one of pure relief.
“I take it you found Aggie, then?”
“She found me, actually. She and Anselm came bursting in here just a few minutes after you did.”
Isolde couldn’t figure how the two of them had learned Bastian was in trouble and made it up to their suite so quickly, but she supposed there were any number of people at Lake Hall who could have alerted their pack leader.
God knew Bastian had left enough of a trail to let someone know he was injured.
Not even Isolde had ever seen so much blood, and she drank the stuff.
Honestly, it was a miracle she hadn’t lost control at the overwhelming scent of it—that tantalizing scent, which still lived on her tongue all these days after she’d tasted it.
Now, the scent of it had Isolde salivating, her fangs threatening to slide free with every whiff of the blood still staining her clothes.
Only the panic and Bastian’s pain had kept the craving at bay before.
“Aggie’s my grandmother,” Bastian explained, drawing Isolde’s attention back to his face. “Well, Everett’s grandmother, but she behaved like mine for my entire childhood.”
“She’s a healer?” Isolde asked.
Bastian nodded—and grimaced at whatever pain the motion caused. “A bloody good one, too. Taught me a lot that’s come in handy over the years.”
“That’s how you knew how to treat my wound,” Isolde guessed. “When I was poisoned by the nightsbane.”
“That’s how I knew about the nightsbane, too. Don’t know where she learned about it, to be honest.”
“Is she a little…” Isolde trailed off, not sure how to say what she meant without sounding rude.
“Yeah, she is,” Bastian said, a sad little smile curving his lips. “She’s always been a little odd, but it’s gotten worse in the last ten years or so. Her mind is starting to slip, I think.”
Isolde thought of the deft, sure way Aggie had tended Bastian’s wounds, with quick hands and clear eyes. Despite her fragmented speech, she certainly didn’t strike Isolde as someone who wasn’t in full possession of her mind.
“Is she Anselm’s mother?” Isolde asked.
“Yes,” Bastian answered. “Everett’s mother died before Anselm took me in, and no one ever really talks about her side of the family. She was from a different pack, I think.”
“Hmm.” Isolde shifted in her seat, trying to work a kink out of her neck from sleeping with her head on the table. “I read once that Wolves mate for life. Is that true?”
“For a lot of Wolves, yes.” Bastian closed his eyes, his cheek pressed against the table.
“Some Wolves take multiple partners in their lives, but most of them, if they find their one, true partner, the person they love with their entire soul, and then they lose that person… they never let anyone else in after that.”
Isolde stared down at her lap, where Bastian’s hand was locked around hers, still clinging like a lifeline.
To be so deeply connected to someone, to need them, down to their very soul…
she couldn’t fathom it. She certainly couldn’t fathom losing that person.
Just the thought of it made her feel like her heart was being torn out through her ribs.
“You never answered my question,” Isolde said, smoothing her thumb along Bastian’s knuckles.
“I’ve just answered about half a dozen of your questions, if you recall.”
Isolde shot him a look. “How are you feeling, Bastian?” she asked gently.
“Like shit.” He huffed a humorless laugh—then winced again. “Everett… he, uh, didn’t go easy.”
“Aggie had to pull seven claws out of your back.”
This time when he grimaced, it wasn’t in pain. “They used the old knives, then. None of the ones I’ve made would come apart like that.”
Isolde would rip Everett’s fucking head off if she could. She hoped whatever Anselm had done to deal with him was even half as painful as what had been done to Bastian.
“You didn’t deserve that, Bastian,” Isolde whispered. “After everything that’s already been done to you here… that shouldn’t have happened, too.”
“I did, though. I deserved worse for abandoning the pack the way I did. I deserved exile.”
“Is that really worse? Exile, as opposed to being shredded to the bone and left to bleed by your own brother?”
“For a Wolf, it is.” Bastian sighed, and the sound was so , so weary. “It becomes a biological need when we’re turned. We aren’t meant to be on our own. We need companionship. Closeness. To be Punished by our pack is one thing, but to be told we can never return… that’s almost worse than death.”
“But you live without other Wolves in Bloodhaven. I know it was your choice, but isn’t that hard?”
Bastian’s gaze captured Isolde’s and held. “I’m not alone there.”
Isolde couldn’t move. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink . Bastian’s eyes, warm and earnest and full of… something she didn’t know how to identify, the warmth of his palm against hers…
An unfamiliar fluttering sensation took root in Isolde’s stomach. Her heartbeat was too fast, had been too fast since Everett tore Bastian out of his room—no, since Bastian had given her that look and she’d begged him to kiss her.
And hell if she knew what to do about it.
Isolde opened her mouth to speak, to say what, she didn’t know?—
Mercifully, at that exact moment, the door to the suite opened and Anselm walked in, Aggie on his heels.
“Bastian,” Anselm sighed, his shoulders slumping with relief as he came toward the table. “You’re awake.”
Anselm lifted his hand, reaching to touch Bastian’s face as he neared, and Isolde caught a glimpse of split, bruised knuckles.
The sight only gave her an ounce of satisfaction.
She suspected that a good look at Everett’s face might lend her another ounce, but nothing short of landing a few punches of her own would do any significant good.
“I’m fine,” Bastian ground out as Anselm’s fingers brushed his temple. He jerked at the touch, and gave a little grunt of pain as the motion tugged at his wounds.
Anselm faltered, pulling his hand away. He tried to conceal the way his face fell, but Isolde saw it. Meanwhile, Aggie was prodding at Bastian’s back, peeking beneath the cloth she’d draped over him and humming to herself. Bastian didn’t seem to notice any of this.
“Well.” Anselm retreated a few steps, folding his arms over his chest. “Everett isn’t going to bother you again while you’re here, and he’s not going to try to stop you if you want to leave with Selene and Isolde when they go.”
Bastian’s brows furrowed, and a moment later, Isolde saw his eyes land on Anselm’s bruised knuckles. “What the hell did you do?” he demanded, trying to push himself upright with the hand that Isolde wasn’t holding.
“Bastian,” Isolde warned, rising halfway out of her chair in alarm. Aggie tutted in disapproval.
But Bastian’s arm gave out before he got very far, and he collapsed back to the table with a cry of pain. For a moment the only sounds in the room were his rapid breaths, muffled by the knuckle he bit down on as he fought through the fresh wave of pain.
“It was… Everett’s right… to Punish me,” he panted, his face still down. “You shouldn’t have… reprimanded him.”
Anselm watched Bastian with a pained expression. “It might have been his right,” he said, his voice low, “but I expressly forbade it. And you know as well as anyone that that sort of disobedience cannot go unpunished.”
Bastian’s hand was tight around Isolde’s, his breath still coming too quickly. He said nothing.
“I see Bastian’s survived the day.” Selene’s voice shattered the tense silence as she swept into the common area, dressed for the night in an elegant vermillion gown. “And he’s looking better already. Wolf healing never ceases to amaze me.”